Is ESPN BET available in Canada or Ontario?

No, ESPN BET is only available within various US states where online sports betting has been made legal, including Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. You need to be physically located in these jurisdictions to play on ESPN BET.

Who is behind ESPN BET and is there an equivalent operator in Ontario or Canada?

Penn Entertainment is the gambling operator that has partnered to license the ESPN brand for use with their online sportsbook platform.  Thus, the closest operator equivalent for Canada is Penn Entertainment's entry, theScore Bet which operates one of the many legal Ontario betting sites, as well as their mobile betting app.  Both the site and app also offer casino gaming.  However, neither Penn Entertainment, nor theScore Bet operates an "offshore" betting site, which might otherwise be available to players located in the "rest of Canada" market.  So, if you are in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec, or the Atlantic Provinces, there is no essential equivalent for ESPN BET available to you.

Will ESPN BET come to Canada or Ontario?

Given Penn Entertainment already has an entry in the legal Ontario market via theScore Bet, which already holds significant brand awareness there, plus the heavy competition and saturation of sportsbook operators in Ontario, we see essentially zero chance that ESPN BET ever moves for a license from the AGCO to operate in that province.  Furthermore, Penn will certainly never open an "offshore" sportsbook in order to serve the "rest of Canada" market, so there will no ESPN BET for players in other provinces either.